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Economical Pie Crust

A pie crust made with melted beef fat, sour milk, and saleratus, rolled and baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,759 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Economical Pie Crust

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fat

  1. Skim the grease from boiled beef and let it cool. Once cold, scrape off the underside of the fat.

Mix, roll and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix melted beef fat, sour milk, and saleratus quickly.

  2. Flour your board well and roll out the dough.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until slightly browned.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef fat
Coats the flour particles and keeps the crust tender and flaky rather than tough.
Sour milk
Supplies moisture and acidity, which reacts with the saleratus to lift the dough.
Saleratus
Releases carbon dioxide when it meets the acid in the sour milk, lightening the crust and aiding browning.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the rolled dough together and gives the crust its body.

The step that matters

Mix quickly. Saleratus begins releasing carbon dioxide as soon as it meets the acid in the sour milk. If the mixture sits before baking, much of that gas escapes, so the crust rises less and turns out denser.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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